


Bargain

by Val_Creative



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Blood, Captain Pan, M/M, Sexual Tension, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 18:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It feels like a poisonous sun roaring beneath his skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bargain

*

 

It feels like a poisonous sun roaring beneath his skin.

Given life from the arrowhead buried into Hook's right shoulder.

"Devils and _spawn_ ," he curses under his breath, spittle flying from his lip as Hook clutches at the bleeding injury. It's a nightmare. His crew has likely separated from each other, terrified and shaking in their boots, fleeing in opposite directions. They had been ambushed, not by the Lost Boys, but by thin, sharp-cheeked faces of _men_.

Hook hunches down, too dizzy to straighten immediately, and lifts his head. He perspires heavily in leather, grateful for the shelter of the boulders and skeleton leaves.

The wilderness of Neverland screeches and beckons on the crawling shadows and echoing sounds of animals. It's easy to travel by ashen moonlight and by his compass, but he can't get around much further like this. Can't make his eyes focus on the readings. His view quivers around its edges.

But, if this is how it was to end—cold and alone on this godforsaken island—he may as well celebrate what eventful life he had paved out for himself so far.

Hook fumbles for a large, darkly colored vial in his pocket, and fumbles longer at the stopper to remove it. Dry lips open for the familiar comfort of spiced rum burning down his esophagus, and only rewarded with empty air. "Bugger," he mumbles heartfelt, tossing it aside. There's still, however, his spoils of war.

Before Hook reaches with his good arm for his sack, a cheerful whistle sounds in his direction.

His face twists up, but hardly from the physical anguish. "Oh, anyone but bloody _you_ ," Hook says, thickly.

Pan leans on the nearby tree, kicking up a bit of dirt with the end of his ratty shoe.

"Aren't you a man of honor, Killian?" he asks, condescending in his own expression. "Show a little respect."

Hook's teeth bare themselves, jaw clenched.

"To _you_ —?" Despite his flash of anger, his words begin to slur from wooziness. "I'd sooner feed myself to… _bleedin'_ mermaids."

"Or it may be the fever talking," Pan amends, crouching down beside the kneeling man and tsking. One of his hands touch the arrow's vane, examining it. "A native arrow, hm?" He flicks a boy-sized forefinger against a vibrant blue feather. "I say you had already figured it out, but they prefer to use a quicker and more agonizing potency than Dreamshade."

Peter Pan's teeth are little white stones, pristine and childish. But his grin widens and seeps out every fragment of his sinister intentions.

"Can you feel it working against you, Captain? The poison'll reach your lungs before your heart, making you gulp out your final breathes before your heart collapses." Hook exhales a long-suffering sigh, concealing his already building fear of _death_ by looking away. He reaches back for his sack, snagging it with his hook and fisting some tobacco.

"You really fancy hearing yourself, don't you?" Hook mutters.

Pan's eyes follow as Hook spreads the tobacco on a bit of dried leafage to his lap, scatters of the browned herb wasted as as his arm to his injured shoulder trembles visibly.

The boy slaps his hands to his thighs lightly, maniac grin fading off.

"No one cares that you're going to die here… pathetic, _unloved_." Pan shakes his head, small lips thinning. "It doesn't have to be like that."

One-handed, Hook rolls his crackled tobacco into the foliage, appearing untroubled. Even with the scent of his blood growing sour and choking to the air.

"What do you know about love?" he says, flatly. "… …You're nothing but a _boy_."

Pan hisses out, eyes squinting in disgust, "And you're _nothing_ but a stinkin' pirate." He leans in close to Hook's space, features quirking and singsonging.

"… A codfish, a _c~o~d~f~i~s~h_."

Swing and miss. It was to be expected. The moonlit, silver hook catches at only cold air when Hook lurches forward clumsily. Pan vanishes on sight. He lurches gain, this time backwards as plump, warm fingers lock into brown hair, yanking tightly until his neck arches. Hook bites down on a yelp of pain, vision blackening when the feathered arrow shifts trapped in his shoulder muscle. Pan's foot stomps brutally onto his left wrist and forces his hook to drag into earthy soil.

"You look rather fitting like this, Killian," the boy murmurs, dipping his head, mouth almost scraping the dark stubble on Hook's jaw. " _Completely at my mercy_."

Hook jerks his face away, but chuckling weakly.

"You're barking up the wrong tree, lad. Haven't a taste for children."

Pan's fingers _claw_ down, angrily yanking once more.

"And I don't like being touched by filthy _grown-ups_ ," he sneers, throwing Hook roughly away from him. The pain is unimaginable. A million tiny daggers. He hasn't the faintest on how he remains conscious through it, or how bile does not rise from his throat. Hook slumps back against the cool boulder, avoiding his wound, sweat dripping like fire down his brow.

Pan stares down at the crushed leafage and ruined tobacco. "Oops," he announces lowly, sounding the _least_ apologetic Hook had ever known. In mere seconds, the rolled cigarette appears perfect and untouched by their disagreement between Pan's fingers, smoldering at its end. The boy holds it out for Hook to take from him, waiting expectantly but not before jerking it out of grasp. A bloom of astonishment, though hardly recognizable amongst the throe of the poison and daze of his mind, sweeps over Hook.

Ruddy pink lips round to the cigarette, as Pan expertly inhales the smoke and holds his breath. A cloud of the same smoke blows nauseatingly into Hook's face.

"Help me find Baelfire. And I'll save you, Hook," Pan explains, simply. Flecks of glimmering moon to wild, blond strands. "Or die with blood on your lips. Just like Milah."

Slowly, Hook receives the cigarette from him. Wrapping his lips around it firmly, tasting _ash_ and nothing of the boy.

" … Haven't much of a choice, have I?" he says, a little more difficulty, heart beginning to stutter.

Pan raises an eyebrow. "If you value your life, I expect not."

Neverland's crawling shadows are beyond penetratingly dark. His crew may be dead, or half-mad.

And the poison _roars_ inside his veins.

Truthfully, options are barely worth a serious weighing. Hook sucks in, and then releases a breath with mock-thinking, removing the cigarette from his mouth.

"Aye, that I do, lad," he says, quietly. Flinching inwardly at the spark of triumph in Pan's gleeful expression. "… That I do."

 

*

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by katfastkatfurious.


End file.
